If your hotel is all-in on the AI hype, you're in for a rude awakening

Effort & Perception

Using AI for guest-facing assets like a website, a social media post, B2B sales assets, or copywriting represents a lack of consistency and intention with delivering a high-standard of experience. It instead highlights a focus on speed and efficiency.

Guests and B2B teams are becoming more and more fluent with recognizing AI - when they see it, they make the judgement that a hotel didn’t take the time to create a truly unique asset, and offloaded it to Claude while a junior marketer was having their second matcha of the day. The perception (rightly so) is that brands are looking for shortcuts, cost-savings, and volume.

A phrase I always come back to is: “How you do one thing is how you do everything”.

A guest who sees a hotel or restaurant using AI for its collateral will assume that it’s also taking shortcuts in other areas of the experience. Unknowingly, you’re damaging your reputation at the expense of ‘speed’. But the speed is involuntarily carrying you towards a market perception of neglect and low standards.

Gucci recently faced backlash when using AI images to promote its Milan Fashion Week show. As a luxury fashion brand that champions “creativity and Italian craftsmanship”, this move started to chip away at their reputation and positioning .

“I think particularly luxury fashion brands need to pay attention [to whether] the latest technology can create positive image for their brands” — Dr Priscilla Chan, senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University Fashion Institute.

There’s another nefarious and subtle signal that comes from using AI, and that is the unspoken belief that a hotel’s guest won’t notice.

However, AI has become so overused that guests can immediately recognize copywriting or visual assets created by ChatGPT/Claude/NanoBanana.

No one is willfully creating a social media post and saying ‘look how amazing this is, I made it with AI’ - instead they are masquerading as if it was their idea, their creativity, and their execution.

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that social platforms are now starting to mark content made with AI as such - to make a clear distinction in what was made by a human, and what was not. Otherwise, most brands wouldn’t mention that images or content were created with AI.

The problem is, this use of AI (and passing it off as human) shows that a hotel thinks their guest is naive or won’t catch on. But they are not naive, they’re already catching on, and they’re mad.

This slowly eats at your reputation because you are undermining the intellect of your guest and assume that they don’t have any taste to discern an AI visual from a real one. Or that those visual and written outputs are even what guests resonate with or enjoy reading.

Self-Commoditization

Just as AI copywriting is all starting to look the same (”its not X, its Y”), design and visual assets will follow suit.

AI websites all look the same, copywriting is all sounding the same, posters and social are all looking the same.

The game of building a successful hotel brand is differentiation, positioning, and recognition.

But with the overuse of AI for guest-facing assets, the difference between brands will blur more than ever before.

We will start to see 5 properties in the same city using AI to build their website, that end up with the same Claude-generated template, same overall structure, same format and flow - the only difference being the photographs of the property.

Zero differentiation, nothing to emotionally connect to, and a frustrating experience for potential guests who have to think harder about what the differences are between your property and another.

How is a guest supposed to connect to your distinct experience if you haven’t taken the time to PROVE that you do have something different to offer?

Using AI for your website design and copy is akin to making your direct channel look like another OTA listing. You’re inflicting commoditization on yourself but calling it efficiency.

The Opportunity for Hotels

While this is all happening, there’s an opportunity for hotels to solidify their positioning, earn trust, and truly stand out as hosts of distinct taste and experiences.

A strong brand signal in a market full of noise.

People associate with brands that reflect their values, identity and point of view. It’s the concept of self-extension through objects, experiences - and in modern times - brands.

If a hotel overuses AI, a guest is unconsciously linking themselves with the values and point of view of the AI ‘craze’. It reflects on them, as they are supporting a property that uses AI for everything. What are those characteristics? Over-efficiency, shortcuts, coldness, neglect of details, lack of imagination.

Not necessarily a set of traits that most people want to be associated with.

On the other hand, a brand that focuses on intention, craft, relevance, and effort attracts a guest that wants those values attached to them as well.

Think of Hermès’ social media posts over the last few years, commissioning artists to create elaborate animations and illustrations that signal to viewers that they are still the go-to brand for bespoke, hand-made products, with an entire world built around them.

In the hotel world, a fantastic example is 1 Place Vendôme, Chopard’s foray into hospitality — they intentionally dropped the Chopard name but maintained the Chopard worldview. The website is an elaborate story of craftsmanship and heritage executed through an immersive layout, intricate details, sequenced animations, and historical quotes about rare materials. Clear effort, intention, and time have been put into the creation of the entire conceptual angle and website experience. This is costly signalling in practice. The expenditure of resources and creativity is the message itself.

Closing Notes

These days it’s easier than ever to stand out and show that your hotel has a point of view, sense of clarity in its direction, and a clear path for a guest to understand what emotional experience you promise. Yes, it requires effort, some time, and confidence - but its rewards are beyond measure.

Unfortunately, it’s even easier to offload the work to AI and think it’s doing a good job (when it’s in fact hurting your reputation).

Is AI in hospitality going to flatten distinction? Or will it supercharge access to the marketing collaterals that used to be ‘costly’?